Expert launches Power in Finland – and Sweden

ReporterMay 11, 2016May 11, 2016Comments Off on Expert launches Power in Finland – and Sweden

Expert is now launching the Power chain in Finland. Next stop is Sweden

The first opening out of two Finnish stores this week was an expected success.

“We brought the Power chain to Finland, because we believe that it has not been sufficient price competition here recent years,” says Expert’s country manager Mika Aro.

Expert is going for the same strategy as in Denmark to challenge the market leader Gigantti in Finnish home technology market.

Bigger stores, under a different brand, competing on price with digital price tags. But with the same store layout as modern Expert stores. The management of Power is the same as Expert.

To Talouselämä, Gigantti’s country manager Irmeli Rytkönen says there is nothing new under the sun and she finds Verkkokauppa.com being a more important competitor.

“Power does not have any kind of benefit or advantage which they would not have been used for 4-5 years with Expert. I do not see nothing new in what they have brought,” says Rytkönen.

The first Power-store opened in Tammisto, Vantaa on monday in a converted Expert-store with updated facilities. Power’s goal is a network of 30 stores by the end of 2017, which means 10 completely new stores, and about 20 converted.

“We believe that there will be important to be a merchant, in most cases an entrepreneur who knows the local customers and their needs,” Mika Aro tells Talouselämä.

The store opening on Monday was a success as the store was visited by thousands of people.

“We were positively surprised. We expected a large number of people, but it became much more”, Aro says.

At the same time, Expert’s Nordic CEO Ronny Blomseth has presented a plan for Expert’s comeback in Sweden – but only as Power. And most likely online.

”We should probably not use the Expert-brand, it is little affected in Sweden,” he told it24.

From a presentation made to suppliers, Expert revealed it expect to have Swedish sales of 450 million NOK in 2017. And double it in 2018.

”We have shown that for some suppliers, so it is in the plan, but we have nothing more concrete than that in the current situation. We do pretty much now elsewhere, like establishing ourselves in Denmark, and we will also change a lot in Finland,” he said.

Last year Expert had 11.7 percent market share in Finland. This is expected to rise to 12.8 percent this year and reach 17.6 percent in 2020.

For Sweden Expert expects to reach almost 5 percent in 2020. Expert’s Nordic central warehouse is located in Sweden.